Lost Dog, Smuggled Children, Fornication on the Beach, and Another Head

Same as "Locally..."

This caught my attention - of course it would - and it makes me both angry and sad. Angry because some foolish sap did not take care of his "pedigreed" dog that he brought from the United States. And, no, I will not accept that it was the maid's doing by leaving a gate open or something. Yes, that does happen. But I'd be willing to bet that the man who bought the dog did it on a whim and then realized, "Oh my gosh. Having a dog is more work than I thought it would be." So, he put the responsibility on the maid. You have no idea how many maids I see walking someone's dogs, here. [And, they do not scoop poop!] Why did you get a dog if YOU didn't want to take care of it?!?

I am sad because I know how dogs are treated here by "locals." No. Not all. But the majority. And now there is some lost dog wandering the streets of Riyadh because of an irresponsible Saudi. There might be some hope for the poor dog, though, because its owner did "hit upon a novel method to search for his pet." He has printed and distributed some 3,000 flyers and has promised a reward of $2,000 to anyone who finds his dog. The cash alone will be incentive for someone to recover the poor little pet. The quick little blurb says, "The flyer, a novelty in itself in the Kingdom, carried the picture of the dog..." But the most laughable sentence is this: "Many people said they had not seen anything like this except in American movies where mostly children print out posters to search for their lost pets." Yeah. Mostly children...

Speaking of children. Does this happen in a civilized country?!? No. I think not. A recent study shows that the Sandbox is home to 83,000 street children. 83,000! Not a huge number in the total population, but still... The average age of the children is 7 years old. SEVEN YEARS OLD!!! I didn't let my son leave my sight at 7 years old. He was twelve or thirteen before I stopped getting an after school babysitter for him for goodness sake! Why kind of parents send their seven year olds out on to the streets to beg? [Only those that are poster-parents for forced sterilization, that's what kind.]

The study says, "Although a relatively recent phenomenon in the Kingdom, the presence of children living and working on the street has increased noticeably with the huge influx of illegally smuggled children from Asia and Africa, mostly through the southern border with Yemen." Umm... What is "recent?" There have been child beggars on the streets for as long as we've been here and that is going on six years. Someone please try to explain to me how it is that children are being smuggled in from Asia and Africa. Are the parents of those children selling their children to become child slaves? Is it not illegal to sell your children in those countries? And if you have having so many children that you cannot afford to take care of them and must sell them, then you, too, are "poster parents" for forced sterilization. Were those children abducted? If they were, then the abductors need to be severely punished. Life in jail with no chance of parole. Or better, a death sentence.

Disturbing statistics from another study found that "94 percent of beggar children deployed by gangs in the streets were born outside the Kingdom, with 54 percent being smuggled into the country." Quick math: 54 percent of 83,000 is 44,820 children that were SMUGGLED into the Sandbox for whatever reason. Are there not 44,820 sets of parents in Asia or Africa wondering what happened to their children??? "Foreign children who have been smuggled into the Kingdom to be sent out to the street are routinely arrested, taken to shelter houses and later deported." That is all well and good, but there is something much more sinister going on with this, in my opinion. "At the shelters, they receive the same medical treatment and psychological counseling as Saudi children. After all help has been given, foreign children are handed over to their respective embassies for deportation at the cost of each country in question." Well, well, well. There you have it. It is a for-profit business. That is what is going on here with all of these smuggled children!

What were these two thinking - oh, wait - they weren't... You do not EVER risk a "PDA" in the Middle East. Doesn't matter what country you are visiting. Go back to your hotel room. Consider yourselves lucky to have been visiting Dubai where you are only going to jail for three months and not here, in the Sandbox, where you would have been immediately arrested for "khulwa," sent to jail for years and given 1500 lashings on top of your jail sentences!

Finally, another beheading. This makes four or five this week.